What inspires/inspired you?

This topic is always something I found interesting.
Basically, what inspires/inspired you to begin practicing martial arts?

For me, I'd say what got me into martial arts was not some desire to fight people and look like a bad ass, but I originally found martial arts to have some kind of spiritual quality to it. And I got that mostly in the old traditional martial arts, not like the ones you'd see popularized today like Jiu Jitsu/Kickboxing/Muay thai. But now after doing MA for close to 8 years now I realize that it is more a way of self improvement and learning more about your self and what exactly you're capable of. Now I'm fighting MMA, again not to be a badass but to prove my skills and hopefully try to make a career out of it, but that is very unlikely.

Fell in love with UFC 9 months ago...wanted to lose weight and get healthy at 40...

I'm an old dad...my son is 4 and I was like, hey...if I want to make it to this kids graduation I better hit it hard. Did a TON of research and found that training jiu jitsu and striking would give me my best bang for buck with regards to cardio and learning something that might help me protect myself.

My biggest motivation is that this is something non-traditional I will be able to share in with my son. Still got a long way to go but I am so into it! Also, it is so exciting to see how popular it is getting. I have a high school friend who is a purple belt, he came this epiphany about 7 years before I did and back then it wasn't nearly as popular.

BJJ is a never ending web of techniques and I want to help it grow and grow a long with it.

jiu jitsu was one of those martial arts i rarely ever heard anything negative about,so i tried it out and loved it!
heard about from mma

monks doing crazzy shit like bending spears on there throats.

oh...and Joe Rogan suggesting it for children as opposed to McDojo's....him suggesting going to a BJJ dojo with some crazy old brazilian....

sucking at grappling/wrestling with friends who are all bigger and stronger than me. i found out after learning a few things that a little knowledge goes a long way and that the more you learn, the more you find out how much more there is to learn. its never ending

progression i'm from an action sports background and i really enjoy seeing styles and my own twist of things progress and evolve!

i used to love japanese thing when i was younger and eventually started to get interested in kung fu, never did anything though as its hard to find a legit school. couple of years ago (i was 16) my older brother was watching TUF and a sat with him to watch it out of boredom, then i downloaded and watched every episode of every season after that and watched all the ufc events i could find. i was hooked, but never really understood it much. then i got interested in actually doing it, and cos we didnt have any sparring gear, me and my brother would just try rolling some bjj every now and then. then i hated getting choked out by him and checked out some vids by random people and found some submissions 101 stuff which i loved. i got curious about what the hell 10th planet was and who this Eddie bravo guy was. 1 day of research later and i was even more hooked :D. just thinking about how much ive learnt and progressed inspires me, from when i didnt understand what a kimura was, to when im trapping some huge guy in crackhead control. thats what keep me hungry for it.
sorry for the life story lol

Martial arts transcends all cultural barriers, all language barriers, all religious barriers, and all geographical barriers. You can't say that about any other sport. That's what attracted me to MMA.

this guy right here :)

http://i.imgur.com/7IUK6.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jim Allen

this guy right here :)

http://i.imgur.com/7IUK6.jpg

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i agree!. the MTS intro pretty much sums it up for me

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Matt Glach

Martial arts transcends all cultural barriers, all language barriers, all religious barriers, and all geographical barriers. You can't say that about any other sport. That's what attracted me to MMA.

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agreed...